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Poster E in Poster Session E: Thursday, August 6, 10:30 am – 12:15 pm, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

The Right STS Responds Preferentially to Communicative Signals

Emalie McMahon¹, Nancy Kanwisher¹; ¹Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Presenter: Emalie McMahon

Our ability to perceive communicative signals---whether directed toward us or others---is central to social behavior. In the current fMRI study, participants viewed videos in which the same people in the same setting engaged in communicative interactions, non-communicative social interactions, or independent actions. A social-interaction-selective region of the superior temporal sulcus STS (SI-STS) responded more to communicative interactions than to either comparison condition. This effect was not limited to observing two people: SI-STS responded similarly when participants viewed a single person communicating with the viewer or an unseen partner. Ratings from separate observers further showed that SI-STS responses were explained by perceptual correlates of social communication including mouth movement, gesture, and emotional expressions. Together, these findings suggest that SI-STS encodes the perceptual correlates of communicative events.

Topic Area: Methods, Tools, Theory & Neural Coding